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A thriving crop with a social benefit
In the North Pacific region of Nicaragua lies Coproexnic, a small co-operative with the goal to improve the lives of thousands of sesame seed and peanut producers. Shared Interest is supporting them in this journey by providing a loan to allow the trade of sesame seeds. Established in 1994, Coproexnic is the largest exporter of organic processed sesame seeds in Nicaragua. Coproexnic is dedicated to improving the skills of their producers, offering them training in areas such as productivity, best practices, fertilisers, plague control, product safety and occupational health.
"We would like to thank the investors on behalf of Coproexnic and its producers for the support and trust you have given us. We are a small co-operative fighting for the social benefit of our producers’ families. Therefore, we hope to have the opportunity to continue working with Shared Interest in the future."
Our Impact
We have been producing a set of externally audited Social Accounts, for the past 13 years and believe they provide a transparent account of our social, economic and environmental impact. This year, we can report that your investment helped support over 160 producer groups and almost 375,000 individuals in 60 countries.
£28.4 million of payments were sent to producers in Latin America, 73% of the total payments sent to all producer groups. This region has experienced significant change over the past 15 years but, despite this, the World Bank estimates that 11% of the population still live in extreme poverty.
Half of the world’s poorest people, living on less than USD 2.50 a day live in Sub-Saharan Africa. We feel that our work in Africa is vital and we know that we work in many areas where other social lenders are reluctant to operate. Of the total 160 producer groups we work with, 47% are based in Africa and this represents 318,095 individuals (31% are women) out of the total of 374,946 people impacted.
Shared Interest is also one of the few social lenders to provide credit facilities to buyer organisations in the Northern Hemisphere. Without these buyer organisations, many producer groups would have limited market access. We play a vital role in filling this gap by sending money to producers on behalf of the buyer. This year we made 1,718 of these type of payments to 270 organisations in 58 countries although the majority went to Asia, primarily to Nepal, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan.
